February Round Up: Fear, Faith & Trusting God with Our Kids

February 29, 2016

The What’s in the Bible? team is passionate about kids, families, God, and faith – we spend a lot of time thinking, watching, praying and reading about those topics and how they intersect. As part of our ongoing desire to serve our families well, we are launching a new blog series called the Editor’s Round Up. Our goal is to bring together the best of what we’re reading on the web – our favorite articles, editorials, and blog posts about kids, families, and faith. Enjoy!

This month, I was drawn to articles about fear and faith, about parenting with a posture of trust – something I struggle with on an almost daily basis. My little girl is 14 months old, teetering on the edge of toddler-dom with all the innocence and energy she can muster, while her dad and I lay awake at night trying to wind down from days of hyper-vigilance. She’s more fun than she’s ever been, but all of the sudden when she took off running on those two tiny feet, she pulled our hearts right out of our chests. Every tumble and every tear remind us how fast she’s growing, and how good it is, but also how much responsibility the Lord has entrusted to us.

At every turn this month, I was reminded that He is faithful. And He can be trusted, even with this worrier mom’s biggest fears and insecurities. As she takes her fragile first steps, so I take mine … deeper and deeper into the waters of faith.

Sharon Miller’s Hashtag Courage spoke volumes to my fearful heart. The sometimes What’s in the Bible? blogger wrote on her own site She Worships that she prays “for the courage to parent them that way. I hope to be the kind of mother that launches her children, rather than hanging on, desperately trying to protect them.” Sharon, a mom of two, includes a list of questions to help gauge what we as parents really mean when we say we want to raise brave kids.

Writing on The Gospel Coalition’s blog, Cameron Cole asked Do Christian Parents Flirt with the Idol of Safety?. To me, this is hardly a question – I think our entire culture values safety almost more than anything else, which is completely natural. But when does the “American Dream” rub up against our callings as Christian parents? Cole writes, “We like their commitment to Christ when it means good moral choices and a sense of spiritual fulfillment. But what happens when they embrace the gospel to a point where life gets financially challenging, or even physically dangerous?”

Nashville blogger Nathalie Hope writes on her blog Here I Raise Mine Ebenezer about Tips for Training a Wild Thing, which stood out to me from the second I saw the headline. (We joke that our girl is 100% wild – a silly, magical, spunky kind of wild that keeps us more than on our toes!) Nathalie gives great encouragement to those of us with naturally adventurous kids – “God began to whisper to my weary soul – reassuring me that wild would serve him well, and would be a necessary tool for walking out the calling He had placed on his life.” What a sweet reminder – God has knit together our children with the perfect fabric for the wild adventures He has planned. May we remember – and give thanks! – for that gift.

Pastor and author Scott Sauls’ post called God’s Gift to Cripple-Hearted, Fragile, Fearful People Like Me rounds out this month’s great reads. He writes about the extraordinary gift of special needs children, and how our own “fragile fearful” hearts are changed by parenting and living in community with kids of all kinds. “We need them to raise us as much as they need us to raise them,” he writes.

However God is molding and shaping you, and raising you up as His own precious child as you are raising yours, we pray that His faithfulness, peace and mercy surround you and your family this week.

“The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness’ he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” Zephaniah 3:17

Do you struggle with fear and parenting? How has the Lord worked in your life to help you see His faithfulness in the midst of anxiety?

Melanie Rainer is the Director of Content for What’s in the Bible? and the editor of the What’s in the Bible? blog.

I have learned, God takes care of my kids way better than I ever did and I absolutely love the outcome of their lives, just because we studied the Bible together! Today, they are raising their own children in the love of Jesus Christ! I am one happy Gram! LOL!

I am a practical person, and I admire Lenore Skenazy and Free Range Kids wisdom. When I went into emergency medicine, while I was doing clinicals there was an accident. A car hit a mother walking with her 2 young children. The older child died. I had a combo realization of "I can literally being holding onto my children's hands and they can still die" along with the "what if?" of faith. What if she had trusted her child and she had ran a few feet ahead or had lagged a few moments behind. Could the outcome have changed?

This is a Christian thing, not an American thing!
We can trust God that even if our worst fears do occur, He WILL give every single one of His children (wherever they are on this planet) His Awesome PEACE BEYOND ALL UNDERSTANDING TO GUARD THEIR HEARTS AND MINDS IN CHRIST JESUS ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I was a single Mum who struggled with mental illness due to hormones from PMDD premenstrual disphoric disorder & raised 3 sons alone (well with Gods help)
I became a Christian when my eldest was 5yrs old and thought/presumed he would always remain close to God, I thought they all would!
When my eldest began showing signs aged 13 of being a prodigal and spending more and more time with his girlfriend, I struggled with trusting God over my sons life. I also struggled at how to parent in that situation alone!
I mourned him as he grew and spent less and less time with me or his brothers and more and more with his girlfriend, then next girlfriend and their two children together. I would beg God to draw him close to Him again in panic prayers often and I felt guilt thinking I wasn't fasting or praying enough etc Aged 23 my eldest son passed an STD to the mother of his two small children aged 16 months and 3 & a half years old, from sleeping with another girl whilst drunk. She threw him out and her revenge was flirting with a guy on Facebook. My son couldn't handle the thought of another man around his two children and on his way to work on my youngest sons 2nd birthday, my eldest son took his own life by jumping off a bridge to his death, witnessed by a postman at 5:15am
I begged God for His Peace, and God gave it me X X X X My Dad took his own life 6 months after my son and I have that peace still for both their deaths. God told me my 2nd son is gay and to just love him (not loving him was never in question!) and although fearful of gay bashing etc and Christians negative comments and pressure and abuse really towards gays instead of just loving them as they ought, I no longer beg God in desperation, I simply trust him X X X I know he loves my children equally and more than I ever could! I married when my eldest was 20 years old and I had another Son and then my only daughter x x x
I suffer mental illness from hormones and my hubby has mental illness from autism but with Gods help we are still together. Mental illness, gays/lesbians/ suicide etc etc are so misunderstood by the church and Satan uses most Christians to hurt and abuse folk with verses that the Holy Spirit has NOT told them to say or write, that most stay away from churches or Christians, especially growing up in the church hearing the abuse!
In a service recently I asked the pastor how he would get gays into church, and he said "well not fetching them to a service when they were preaching about gays!!!"
If you can't be loving and compassionate enough to draw gays to Christ in church then you can't out of church, and WE are the church, so WE are Christ like and Christ shows LOVE to all.
The church is way too full of evil for most to flock to Christ via it!
God wants LOVING CHRISTLIKE FOLLOWERS not pew filling verse preachers, from their own minds, but LOVE from the Holy Spirit.